Scandal-ridden CA city's leaders ordered to trial

Current and former Bell city council members from left, George Cole, George Mirabal, Teresa Jacobo and mayor Oscar Hernandez and listen during a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday Feb. 16 2011. Superior Court Judge Henry Hall ordered the six to trial following a preliminary hearing. Mayor Oscar Hernandez and former council members Luis Artiga, Victor Bello, George Cole, Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabel also were ordered to stay away from City Hall and no longer participate in Bell's civic affairs. Each made about $100,000 a year for service on a City Council that meets once a month and other agencies. (AP Photo/Brian van der Brug, Pool)
— AP

Current and former Bell city council members from left, George Cole, George Mirabal, Teresa Jacobo and mayor Oscar Hernandez and listen during a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday Feb. 16 2011. Superior Court Judge Henry Hall ordered the six to trial following a preliminary hearing. Mayor Oscar Hernandez and former council members Luis Artiga, Victor Bello, George Cole, Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabel also were ordered to stay away from City Hall and no longer participate in Bell's civic affairs. Each made about $100,000 a year for service on a City Council that meets once a month and other agencies. (AP Photo/Brian van der Brug, Pool)
/ AP

Their clients, the lawyers said, weren't aware of what Rizzo was doing and were only singled out by prosecutors after word of the salary scandal garnered nationwide attention.

"This is an unfair, politically motivated and unjust prosecution and it should stop today," said Cole's attorney, Ronald Kaye.

In his lengthy statement, which took the court well past its normal adjournment hour, Hall indicated he wasn't buying any of that.

He agreed with prosecutors that the officials had created sham boards and commissions that existed for no reason but to pay them huge salaries.

All of the defendants but Bello, a former mayor of Bell, remain free on bond. He has been in jail since his arrest, unable to raise bail, and he appeared in court Wednesday handcuffed and in yellow jail garb.

Most of the defendants left court in silence, but Artiga said quietly that he wasn't surprised by the judge's ruling.

"That's all I can say," he said. "If I say anymore I'll get in trouble."

Several attorneys said they weren't surprised by the ruling either, noting the level of evidence required to send someone to trial is much lower than that required for a criminal conviction.